I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.
Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?
You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.
Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.
Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.
Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.
Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?
Great episode and nice to see quick turn around for this!
@Indi Dev: Not sure there is much to add that hasn’t already been said. I hope that the Dev can fix his situation as Paul was pointing out it did seem like he was very unprepared for managing this. I still feel that this is a sign to be cautious with Kickstarter, but not out right abandoning it. As Jonah pointed out there were worse cases.
@Fallout 4: I am looking forward to this game, also FO series wasn’t always First Person perspective, it used to be Isometric like Wasteland 2. So for some Wasteland 2 is like having a Isometric Fallout 3.
I loved the trailer, the color scheme seems so much more alive than in FO3 and FO NV. I think I prefer a voiced protagonist so I am looking forward to that as well.
@Steam returns: I can see how this can be easily abused, however I too have a lot of games on my list some I want to play and some that I don’t have any intention of playing but got through others or through Humble Bundle. Also when games start being like $2 it’s really harder to feel that need to resist.
Now here’s a Question since it’s been awhile for a QotW: Which do you prefer a Voiced protagonist (or one that talks at least via text if not voice) or a Blank slate (Chrono, Link, Mario, etc)